Testing the Atom Bomb

The Washington Post looked at the testing of the first atomic bomb at White Sands. Nuclear weapons are a topic on which I have done some work in the past. But this piece looks more at the historic test called Trinity.

Trinity Test
Trinity Test

Credit for the piece goes to Alberto Cuadra and Laris Karklis.

Arming a Civil War

War is good for the arms business. So a long and bloody civil war in Syria is just what arms manufacturers want. And while arming the Syrian government is fairly easy, how do you get weapons and ammunition to the Syrian rebels? The New York Times maps the flow of arms through an almost Sankey-like diagram where the number of flights determines the width of the arrows from source to destination.

And while that would be sufficient information to warrant a map, the Times adds a further layer by showing when the flights arrived. Clearly the civil war began with a certain number of arms. But as the war has both drawn on and become bloodier, new weapons are needed and ammunition needs to be restocked. Those needs likely explain a recent surge in flights.

Map of routes used to arm Syrian opposition forces
Map of routes used to arm Syrian opposition forces

Credit for the piece goes to Sergio Peçanha.

The ABCs of the F-35

Certainly in the more illustrative range, a few weeks back the Washington Post published a small piece that looked at the F-35. Somehow it has survived budget cuts and become a monstrous $400 billion defence project. Partly that is because it is being built in three different versions for all the main aircraft-flying service branches: the Air Force (A), the Marine Corps (B), and the Navy (C). The Post piece highlights some of the key differences between the  versions.

The F-35A
The F-35A

Credit for the piece goes to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Alberto Cuadra, and Bill Webster.

Understanding Modern China

China is a big country, both geographically and demographically. It can also be rather opaque and difficult for an outsider to understand. So this recent work from Reuters is amazing because it makes China a bit more transparent while illustrating just how the political system structures power and personnel appointments.

The table of contents/introduction
The table of contents/introduction

Truthfully, there is more content there than ought to be consolidated into a single blog post here. Briefly, the project was some 18 months in development and hits upon three key areas: Social Power, Institutional Power, and Career Comparisons. Two other sections, China 101 and Featured Stories, offer additional material to help the user understand China’s past and what is going on in the present.

Social Power with Xi Jinping's network shown
Social Power with Xi Jinping's network shown

Social Power examines, primarily through the use of network diagrams, the social dynamics of the upper echelons of the Chinese leadership. Previous generations of Chinese political leaders saw power confined into the hands of a few, e.g. Mao Tse-tung, but in recent years the Chinese Communist Power has decentralised that power into several individuals. Many of those individuals have friendships, marriages, and business relationships that have advanced them and kept them in power. The interactivity allows the user to dive deep into these relationships. And should things becoming confusing, here and throughout the app, there are links to biographies, definitions, and guides to explain what is before the user.

Institutional Power
Institutional Power

Institutional Power roughly compares to a look at the American system of checks and balances. The responsibility of governing China falls to three “branches”: the Communist Party, the Chinese government, and the People’s Liberation Army (under which the navy and air force fall, e.g. the People’s Liberation Army Navy). This section of the app lists who belongs to each post or group and how that post or group falls into the broader structure of the Party, Government, or PLA.

Career Comparison with the guide open
Career Comparison with the guide open

The Career Comparison shows the different—but not really—tracks taken by the leaders of China. The user can compare individuals both present and past, along with potential future players, to see their route to power. China’s political system, because of its arguably undemocratic nature, is different from that of the United States. The path to power is longer and more established in China, as this section clearly shows.

As aforementioned the app was designed over 18 months and was optimised for the iPad 2+ and modern browsers (especially Chrome and Safari). All in all, a stellar piece of work. Design and development credits go to Fathom Interactive Design. The credits listed in the About section are as follows:

EDITOR+PROJECT LEADER: Irene Jay Liu
PRODUCTION HEADS: Yolanda Ma, Malik Yusuf
LEAD WRITER: Chris Ip
COPY EDITOR: John Newland
DESIGN+DEV: Fathom Information Design

All Your Drone Base Are Belong to Us

John Brennan’s confirmation for heading up the CIA begins today. He’s been pretty instrumental in strengthening the United States’ counter-terrorism programme, especially the use of drones to eliminate terrorists.

For those drones, the Washington Post mapped out the known bases in Africa and the Middle East from which we operate our drones.

Map of drone bases
Map of drone bases

French Special Forces Seize Kidal

On Tuesday French special forces captured the airport in Kidal, Mali. (Although the use of the term airport is a bit generous.) In an unanticipated move—the Malian army was not informed before the operation commenced—the French retook the last major urban centre that had been under Islamist control. This may well end the first phase of the war in Mali, i.e. the recapture of major cities and towns taken by the Islamists since last year. The next phase will be training the Malian army and securing the towns and cities taken by the French. But there is little indication that the latter task will be undertaken by the French army.

As usual, click the image below for the full-sized version.

The capture of Kidal by airmobile French forces
The capture of Kidal by airmobile French forces

Operation Serval

The tricky part about doing an infographic on a current event, like the conflict/war in northern Mali, is to keep the graphics updated and timely. Alas, I don’t have the necessary amount of time to do that. But, I still do want decent graphics explaining just what is happening.

With Mali, the hard part is that the Islamist/Tuareg rebellion against the democracy-overthrowing military government originally backed by the US in an attempt to beef up that military against the rebellion that then defeated that military is so far away and so foreign to much of the American public that so very much needs to be explained and be made relevant. This piece of mine doesn’t quite do that, but my infographic does attempt to show that France is now fighting a war far from its shores (and largely on its own). It also tries to highlight the fluidity of the ground war, especially around the fighting in and around Konna. Konna is the gateway to the city of Mopti which leads straight to the capital Bamako.

Operation Serval
Operation Serval

Fighter Jets

A large-scale infographic with lots of drawings of fighter jets. That’s pretty much what this is. And that’s cool enough for me. The background is that the US fighter programme for the F-35 is increasingly ridiculously expensive and beyond budget. Some nations, like Canada, are starting to have second thoughts. This post outlines potential options and adversaries.

Not all of these aircraft are really options. For example, the US has banned the export of the F-22 and it is highly unlikely that Canada would purchase the Raptor. Will the Russians ever build the PAK FA? They’ve been trying to build them for years and the aircraft has yet to go into production. Regardless of the likelihood of facing the adversaries or procuring the options, they’re still pretty cool illustrations and side-by-side comparisons.

Fighter jet options and adversaries for Canada
Fighter jet options and adversaries for Canada

Credit for the piece goes to Jonathon Rivait, Mike Faille, and Matt Gurney.

Drone Wars

This is a small interactive piece by the Washington Post that looks at the drone wars being waged by the United States specifically in Pakistan and then Yemen/Somalia. Clicking on a specific date in the timeline brings that date into focus with articles about the attacks in question.

Drone Wars
Drone Wars

What would have perhaps been interesting is a comparison of the number and location of drone strikes between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. Regardless, it illuminates a dark front of our ongoing wars.

Credit for the piece goes to Julie Tate, Emily Chow, Jason Bartz, Jeremy Bowers, Anup Kaphle and Olga Khazan.

Tracking the Royal Navy in World War I

I’ve always liked naval history. So I was pleased when several days ago this movie of Royal Navy ship movements during World War I was released. Using data from navigation logs, it plots the locations of the UK’s naval ships throughout the course of the war and so when played out over time you see the changes in those positions. The screen capture below shows just how much the UK depended on guarding the trans-Atlantic convoys. But also note the UK’s operations on rivers deep inside China.

Escorting the convoys
Escorting the convoys

My only complaint is that I could not find a way to slow it down or pause it once it had started.

Credit for the piece goes to CartoDB and Zooniverse, via the Guardian.